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Volume 8 Issue 4…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…January
28, 2004
Opium War or a
Sliced Up Melon
By
John Burl Smith
Humiliating British treaties, most
prominently the Treaty of Nanking 1842 and the Boxer Protocol 1901, and foreign
occupation of Beijing 1860, combined to enable Europe and the United States of
America (USA) to slice up China like a melon in the mid-19th century. The event
that made its succulent flesh ripe for devouring with devastating efficiency
was the Opium War.
Perhaps
the most sordid and vicious event in European history, maybe exceeding Adolf
Hitler's Nazis, was the so-called Anglo-Chinese War. The British East India
Company was the major drug-trafficker in the world by the 1830s. Very few drug
cartels of the twentieth century can match its sheer size and criminality.
Growing opium in India and shipping it to Canton for manufactured goods and tea
for England, the triangle mimicked the slave trade's "Middle
Passage." Devastated by human misery, China became a country of drug
addicts. British-owned opium parlors proliferated until the imperial government
outlawed opium in 1836. However, like slavery in the US, British drug lords
continued the illegal enterprise.
Lin
Tse-hsü, Imperial Commissioner at Canton, a brilliant official, wanted to stamp
out the opium menace at its source. Rooting out corrupt officials and British
drug traffickers, he appealed to Queen Victoria, who had outlawed consumption
and opium trading in England. He requested Britain cease opium trading in
China. Refusing to cease or handover British drug lords, England attacked and
quickly defeated China in 1842.
China was forced to accept the degrading Treaty of Nanking. Granted
"extraterritoriality" by the treaty, British citizens ignored Chinese
laws. They no longer paid import duties to China. Britain was granted
"most favored nation" trading rights along with France and the US.
Sinking deeper into its British morass, China's opium problem doubled under the
Treaty of Nanking.
Fed up with British opium ravishing China, religious societies began the Boxer
Rebellion in 1900. Concentrated mostly in Beijing, they tried to rid China of
foreign devils. Like the US in Iraq, Britain's European coalition quickly captured
and occupied Beijing. The imperial government was arrested and forced to accept
the humiliating Boxer Protocol of 1901.
Adding
insult to injury, after this humiliating defeat, Europe and the US "carved
China up like a melon." Similar to the partitioning of Africa, these
western powers now made China their "sphere of interest." Carving up
the melon, the US insisted on an "open door" policy in China and
European powers demanded huge indemnities. Gorging themselves, they privatized
railways, monopolized commercial activities, gained access to ports and
extracted territorial concessions. The rape of china was complete.
Few
intelligent people today can look at the US "war on terror" and not
see parallels to the British incursion into China. The opium trade flourishes
in Afghanistan under US-installed puppet Hamid Karzai, while the people suffer.
US-backed Halliburton is chopping up Iraq, just as the East India Company
exploited China. Occupiers, the US labels Iraqis fighting like Boxers for
freedom from tyranny "terrorists." (For more about the Boxer
Rebellion, log on to www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/ching/taiping.htm)
Like the
vast majority of his pre-teen peers, the Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro
is financially challenged. Despite his lack of liquidity, he has an uncanny
ability to place monetary demands on the limited resources of his family.
Having recently lost a school textbook, the Dark One/Ninja was asked how he
plans to pay for it. He looked lost for a moment, then he perked up to ask,
"Can I borrow the money?"
John
Milton Hay (1838-1905)
Offspring of a country doctor, John Milton Hay was born in Salem, Indiana on
October 12, 1838. A graduate of Brown University, Hay studied law in his
uncle's office and was admitted to the Illinois bar on February 4, 1861. Hay
accepted an appointment as one of President-elect Lincoln's private assistant
secretaries.
On March 22, 1865, Hay accepted the position of secretary of legation at Paris,
where he served in Paris from 1865 to 1867, and later as secretary of legation
in Vienna (1867-1868) and in Madrid (1869-1870).
In 1870, Hay joined the New York Tribune staff as an editorial writer.
His columns appeared in the major magazines. His best-known verse ballads Jim
Bludso and Little Breeches were followed by Pike County
Ballads (1871) and Castilian Days (1871). He published The
Bread-Winners: A Social Study (1884), a novel that attacked labor unions
and defended economic individualism. With John Nicolay, Hay co-wrote Abraham
Lincoln: A History (1890) and Abraham Lincoln: Complete Works (1894).
On November 1, 1879, Hay became assistant secretary of state under President
Rutherford B. Hayes. On March 31, 1881, he resigned shortly after James A.
Garfield became president. Hay worked in the campaign of William McKinley and
was rewarded with the ambassadorship to England. He arrived in London on April
21, 1897 and left in 1898 a confirmed Anglophile.
On September 30, 1898, Hay replaced William R. Day as Secretary of State. A
McKinley confidant, Hay enjoyed a free rein over US foreign affairs. On
September 14, 1901, an assassin's bullet ended McKinley's life. And, while Hay
remained secretary of state, Theodore Roosevelt controlled foreign policy.
Hay began the custom of regular press conferences and helped make secretary of
state an office of worldwide influence. His best-known contribution to US
foreign affairs was the Open Door Policy. In the aftermath of the Boxer
Rebellion, it proclaimed the US supported a policy designed to "preserve
Chinese territorial and administrative entity" and "safe-guard for
the world the principle of equal and impartial trade with all parts of the
Chinese Empire." Many people felt this rhetoric would save China from
partition. It did not, but it won Hay great acclaim at home and abroad.
Hay's other diplomatic achievements include the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty with
Britain. It gave the US a free hand to build, control and fortify a canal
across the Isthmus of Panama. He negotiated the Hay-Herrán Treaty (January 22,
1903) with Colombia and the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty (November 18, 1903) with
the Republic of Panama, which gave the US the Canal Zone.
On January 26, 1903, Hay succeeded in negotiating the Convention of 1903 with
Great Britain; it settled the dispute with Britain over the boundary between
the Alaska panhandle and Canada.
Hay died
in Newbury, New Hampshire on July 1, 1905. He still held office, although in
name only. (Sources: Encyclopedia Americana and www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/hay.html)
Boxer
Rebellion 2005
Kudos to
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA)! During the Senate confirmation hearing, she posed
some salient questions to Secretary of State-designate Dr. Condoleezza Rice.
Citing statements made in public appearances by Dr. Rice, Senator Boxer demonstrated
that a web of lies was woven by the George W. Bush administration to justify
military action against Iraq. Like any good liar, Dr. Rice balked and bristled.
Breaking
from the ranks of weakling Democrats, a rebellious Boxer is to be commended for
her courage in asking tough questions and forcing Rice to dissemble. However,
Rice is not the one that must be held accountable for the nation's actions in
foreign affairs. Like Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has lost all
credibility, if confirmed, Rice will be told what, when and how to deliver the
Bush administration's messages.
In
essence, Dr. Rice is and will continue to be a water-girl. As National Security
Adviser, she neither formulated policy nor devised strategy; she sat on the
sidelines awaiting instructions. As Secretary of State, she will continue in
this messenger role. Rice can no more be held accountable for delivering the
Bush administration's messages of deception than a Scottish terrier for
salivating when fetching its master's slippers.
Dr.
Rice's lack of credibility and candor make her uniquely suited to represent an
administration that lies through its teeth about spreading freedom and
democracy when its true aim is to rule the world and control its vital
resources as the sole imperial power. Kudos for continuing the Boxer rebellion
to make the liars that control the water-girl accountable!
Barbarians
Are Coming
By
I. K. Shukla
When barbarians
come
They bomb cities,
villages, slums, bridges
They bomb schools,
hospitals, ambulances
They blast power
plants, waterworks, sewers
Their precision
strikes kick butts and some
When barbarians
come
They raze mosques,
churches, temples, shrines
They rip the earth
with tanks, they sow land mines
They turn whole
nations into skulls and bones
They shower WMDs
and depleted uranium
When barbarians
come
They torch
libraries, they destroy museums
They rob the
treasury, they loot the land
They trample
civilization, they trash humanity
They rain terror.
They Take a Stand.
When barbarians
come
They hack
democracy, they rape freedom
They launch
genocide and slaughter the natives
They hatch
traitors, they breed puppets
They pillory the
patriots, they crown the scum
When
barbarians come
About Me: Born
in Allahabad, India, I. K. Shukla received his M.A. in English from Banaras
Hindu University. A resident of Southern California, he is co-founder of the
Coalition for an Egalitarian and Secular India. With more than four decades of
journalistic writings in English and Hindi to his credit, Shukla is author of
several books, including Hindutva: Autopsy of Fascism as a Theo-terrorist Cult
& Other Essays, Media House, Delhi, 2003. He continues to write and is
currently working with others on the tsunami relief efforts. A human, Shukla
does "not believe in barriers and divisions man-made or accidental."
Disgruntled says:
If you missed George W. Bush peering over his reading classes, Dick Cheney
looking like a fish out of water and the first ladies lip-syncing at Friday's
prayer service during the congregation's singing of a hymn that neither of the
first men knew, then you missed a rarity in the annals of false piety. In that
brief moment, clearly visible for all to see was the opposite of the image that
Bush has worked overtime to perfect for a gullible American public. Instead of
piety and born-again fundamentalism, Bush and company were the epitome of
Aristotle's cogent quotation on tyranny and hypocrisy: "A tyrant must put
on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less
apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing
and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing
that he has the gods on his side."
Disgruntled wants to know: To truly exemplify its high brow freedom
and democracy rhetoric, the USA must abolish its Electoral College system,
which values votes cast for president in the various states differently. Given
its own less than ideal political system, it is sheer hubris to assume the USA
can impose "democracy" on another country, much less a region or the
world. Yet, this is what is being presented as the current goal in Iraq.
Wracked by violence, under occupation with an electoral process that is alien
and run by a puppet administration, how can elections in Iraq be
"free" or "fair?"
Disgruntled feels: Lethal ambition! A prominent Austrian
official has called on the government to strip California Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger of his homeland's citizenship for his role in the commission of
a state murder. Austria, like most of the civilized world has outlawed capital
punishment. When Gov. Schwarzenegger allowed the lethal injection of convicted
murderer Donald Beardslee to go forward rather than commute the death sentence
to life in prison, he ceased to be worthy of Austrian citizenship. An ambitious
Neanderthal, Gov. Schwarzenegger has his sights set on being the first
foreign-born US president. Like the current White House occupant that earned
the reputation of being the "most lethal governor in Texas' recent
history," Schwarzenegger probably feels he too can kill his way into the
hearts of US voters.
Just
a Racket
Smedley
Darlington Butler (1881-1940)
War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that
is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows
what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the
expense of the masses.
I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation
comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that
when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes
overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers
follow the flag.
I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of
the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense
of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is
simply a racket.
There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to.
It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle
men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war
preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.
It may
seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness
compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months as a member of this
country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all
commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that
period, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle- man for Big
Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a
gangster for capitalism.
I
suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like
all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own
until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation
while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the
military service.
I helped
make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I
helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to
collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American
republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long.
I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers
in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar
interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its
way unmolested.
During
those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket.
Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The
best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on
three continents. ( A two-time Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, Major
General Smedley Butler went from racketeer for corporate profits to advocate
for constitutional principles over imperialism. For more about the soldier
turned peace activist and the excerpt from this speech, which was delivered in
1933, see www.peace.ca/smedleybutler.htm
and www.warisaracket.org/index.html)
Mailbox:
E-Mails, Faxes and Telephone Calls
Email vrblackburn1@aol.com Good Riddance! FCC Chairman Michael
Powell announced he will step down in March, proclaiming he had "completed
a bold and aggressive agenda." Powell will be best remembered for his
crackdown on Janet Jackson's right breast and other crimes against decency. But
Powell's most lasting impact will be rewriting the rules of media ownership on
behalf of corporate conglomerates to allow for greater consolidation. Powell
has set a course that erodes media diversity, competition and independence.
Email www.aztlan.net January 26, 2005... US
occupation forces in Iraq suffered their bloodiest day since the invasion on
March 2003. Thirty-one (31) US Marines were killed in western Iraq when their
helicopter crashed. All 31 were from Camp Pendleton in Southern California. In
a second attack, four (4) US Marines were killed when their convoy was ambushed
in the western province of Al-Anbar. The convoy was on the deadly road between
Baghdad and the airport when a rocket-propelled grenade hit it. The total
number of US casualties in Iraq is now 1,416.
Email www.lewrockwell.com According to a
major international poll of nearly 22,000 people in 21 countries, pessimists
about Bush's impact on global security outnumbered optimists by more than a
two-to-one margin. "The research makes very clear that the reelection of
Bush has further isolated America from the world," said Doug Miller,
GlobeScan's president. "It also supports the view of some that unless his
administration changes its approach to world affairs in its second term, it
will continue to erode America's good name, and hence its ability to
effectively influence world affairs."
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